Five Ways to create a Healthy Home in Lilyfield
Have you ever thought of your home as being healthy or unhealthy? While the concept of a healthy home might be new to a few of us, it is gradually gaining popularity with property owners. A healthy home can include a number of elements from building products used to construct your home to utilizing non-toxic cleansing products. Below is a list of five methods to help you in developing a healthy home environment.
1. Clean Air and Circulation:
Here are some unknown realities about the air inside many of today’s houses:
Indoor air contaminant levels might be two to five times higher than the contaminant levels outdoors.
Indoor air contaminant is one of the leading environmental concerns today.
Australians spend up to 90% of their time inside.
Indoor air pollutants such as tobacco smoke, pollen, mold, dust, and animal dander have the capability to create asthmatic and allergies.
Listed below are a couple of methods to improve the quality of your indoor air:
Consider an Indoor Air Purifier. You can also install exhaust fans in restrooms to assist remove moisture and chemicals from your home.
Update the air filters on your heater with the pleated filters that capture smaller particles. Change the filters regularly as recommended by the manufacturer’s guidelines.
You can also use indoor houseplants to aid in purifying your home’s air. For example, Boston Ferns clean formaldehyde from the air. According to environmental experts, formaldehyde is a colorless, strong-smelling gas. When present in the air at levels above 0.1 ppm (parts in a million parts of air), it might trigger watery eyes, burning feelings in the eyes, nose and throat, nausea, coughing, chest tightness, wheezing, skin rashes, and allergies. Formaldehyde can be found in insulation, particleboard, paper products and many cleaning products.
2.Dust-proof Your Home:
Dust your rooms and knickknacks regularly with a moist cloth.
Dust your hardwood, tile, linoleum, and laminate flooring regularly with a dust mop or a vacuum made for hard flooring.
Vacuum carpets, carpets, and upholstered furniture regularly. Consider purchasing a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter. A HEPA filter is capable of eliminating a minimum of 99.97% of all particles that are 0.3 microns or larger. In addition, consider utilizing a bag-less vacuum to avoid the direct exposure of dust when you change a bag.
Encase pillows, mattresses, and box springs in an airtight, dust-proof cover.
Dust/clean ceiling fans regularly to make sure they are not launching dust in the air each time you run them.
Change dust-collecting blinds and long drapes with window shades or washable curtains.
3. Use Natural and Non-Toxic Cleaning Products:
One way to ensure that the fragrances in your house are tidy and fresh is to avoid utilizing harsh cleaning products, which can create fumes that might linger for days. Try utilizing natural active ingredients such as baking soda, vinegar, soda water, and lemon juice.
For example, to make a natural glass cleaner, mix:
2 teaspoons white vinegarone quart of warm water
Mix ingredients together and pour into spray bottle. Spray on surface and wipe dry.
4. Fill Your Home with Natural and Earth-Friendly Products. Below is a little list of eco-friendly products available on the market today:
Organic cotton towels, linens, clothes
Mattresses bediing, pillows
Cork flooring, wool carpet
Sofas, chairs, ottomans
Toys and games for all ages
Pet products
Soap and laundry detergents
Organic candles, home décor accessories
5. Use Safe, Non-Toxic Interior Paints that have extremely low VOC (volatile organic compounds) contentno formaldehydelow odor
Try utilizing any of the above suggestions to create a healthy home environment. Although the idea of a healthy home is relatively new to many, there are numerous resources available consisting of books, articles, and sites, where you can find extra info.
If you need environment cleaning services in Annandale, Rozelle, Leichhardt, Forest Lodge, Balmain, Glebe, Camperdown, Rodd Point, Birchgrove, Pyrmont and Lilyfield, call us now!
Natural, Chemical Free At Home Dry Cleaning Approaches
Perchloroethylene, much better referred to as perc, is used by 80 percent of dry cleaners in Australia as a solvent to clean clothing that are “dry clean only.” Regardless of its efficiency, using this chemical has been connected to a range of health adverse effects and has recently come under heavy public scrutiny. With heavy regulation from relevant agencies, professional dry cleaners are looking for the use of a safer chemical– liquid carbon dioxide– to provide a green laundry option. At-home dry cleaning kits such as are providing the choice of affordable & ecologically safe dry cleaning, that cuts down the energy-burning, waste producing procedures that the professionals use.
The first step to green dry cleaning is replacing hazardous chemicals with natural cleaning products. Perchloroethylene (perc) is a synthetic chemical that is made from a reaction between ethylene and chlorine. Like many syntheitic chemicals, it presents a hazard to our health. Perc is a main nervous system depressant. Direct exposure to it can happen in the office or in the environment when it is released into air, water, land, or groundwater. It can also occur when people use products consisting of perc, spend time in dry cleaning facilities that use perc, live above or adjacent to these dry cleaning facilities, or bring dry cleaned garments into their home before they are properly aired out. Short-term contact can trigger dizziness, headaches, nausea, and inflammation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, while long term direct exposure presents higher hazards, including liver and kidney damage and cancer.
Liquid carbon dioxide
Liquid carbon dioxide (CO2) appears to be the most practical green dry cleaning solvent to replace perchloroethylene. It is cheap, plentiful, naturally occurring and can even be recycled from the industrial wastes from the manufacture of chemicals such as ammonia. Most significantly, direct exposure to carbon dioxide has no health adverse effects. The only disadvantages for dry cleansing with CO2 are that it does not clean as well as perc does and the machinery required to use it is extremely expensive, thus a higher cost is passed on to the consumer.
A virtue of environmentalism is moderation. That being said, green dry cleanind is best achieved if you do not dry tidy at all or limit the use ofprofessional dry cleaning by using at-home dry cleaning kits for garments with smaller spots and stains or that need to be freshened. Professional dry cleaning is a large process that utilizes a lot of energy and produces a lot of waste in the form of powder residue, sludge and wastewater. If the dry cleaner is still utilizing perc (it is still allowed in the majority of states), these substances are hazardous. At-home dry cleaning includes no greater than a cleaning cloth and your dryer. There are no hazardous chemicals involved and no waste.
While perc remains the most effective dry cleaning solvent, using natural cleaning products and at-home dry cleaning can only be beneficial to our health and our environment.
Green Cleaning Gets a Boost with the Ultimate Cloth
Nobody would argue that there’s a growing awareness about the impact that we, as humans, have on the environment. While much of the media’s focus has been on greenhouse gas emissions and the methods we can lessen our carbon footprint, less attention has been paid to the impact that standard cleaning products and methods have on our health and on the environment. Although chlorofluorocarbons have long been recognized as contributing to the exhaustion of the earth’s ozone layer, and have been largely eliminated from consumer products, conventional cleaning products continue to have a harmful impact on the environment. To that end, there has been a wave of “green cleaning” products getting in the marketplace.
Conventional Cleaning Products
The majority of traditional cleaning products contain a range of potentially hazardous chemicals, in part since they are largely unregulated and in part since there are couple of labeling requirements. For example, many cleaning products contain phosphates (which are also a main element of many fertilizers), which can pollute water and rob lakes and rivers of oxygen. Also, many cleaning products with dyes and scents contain phthalates, and most incorporate other natural compounds into their formulas. Together, these chemicals can have adverse results on the neurological functions, respiration, and reproductive organs of humans and wildlife. Our use of a number of different cleaning agents simultaneously (a window cleaner, a basin cleanser, and a toilet bowl cleaner, for example) can intensify the products’ impacts on our health.
Green Cleaning Products
In response to the growing concern about the chemicals in cleaning products and their adverse impacts on our health and on the health of our world, green cleaning products are being promoted. Some companies that make green products prohibit specific chemicals, and others make it a point to fully divulge all ingredients on labels. What they do not tell you, though, is that it’s absolutely possible to have a clean home without utilizing any cleaning products at all. Cleaning without products might take a bit more elbow grease, but water alone will do the trick.
Why Water and a Cloth Functions Just as Well
For the ecologically conscious, one of the very best cleaning tools is a cloth – some would say the ultimate cloth – that utilizes mirafiber to produce a streak free, spot free, lint free, and dust free finish. Utilizing this type of cloth means that you do not have to use paper towels, which contribute to the waste that negatively impacts the environment. Additionally, this ultimate cloth is typically guaranteedto last five years, making it decidedly eco-friendly. Since it’s washable and bleachable, it can be used over and over again on essentially any surface, from windows and glass to stainless-steel and Corian. Generally, you just wet it, wring it, wipe your surface, and walk away. This ultimate cloth saves time, saves money, and, most significantly, helps save the earth.
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